When Bush Invades: There Will Be Blood
Slate has turned the release of “W” into a reunion of many of the media greats who covered Bush, teeing off on various sub-topics inspired by the film, the President, or whatever the media-ists to have to promote.
Hubris co-author Michael Isikoff takes up the question of when Bush decided to invade Iraq, saying the war was in motion by May 1, 2002.
On that day Isikoff places Bush on the South Lawn, whacking tennis balls to his dogs and yelling at Press Secretary Ari Fleischer about Saddam Hussein:
“Did you tell her I’m going to kick his sorry motherfucking ass all over the Mideast?”
Bush gave an interview on Ronald Reagan the same day, and Isikoff thinks the President’s memo scribbles are indicative of his mind-frame.
“Optimism and strength,” Bush scrawled at the top of the memo. Also, “decisive” and “faith.” Next to a question about Reagan’s direct, blunt style, Bush wrote “moral clarity.” He drew an arrow next to the word forceful. Alongside a question about the 1983 suicide-bombing attack on the U.S. Marines barracks in Lebanon (which killed 241 U.S. troops), Bush wrote, “There will be casualties.”